Ant colony

"Humans cannot understand aliens."

The next morning, I was eating breakfast with the energetic α-Han with my dark circles twice as heavy as yesterday, when I heard her say this inexplicably.

"what?"

"I'm thinking about aliens," she said. "Think about it, can you understand the pursuit of someone whose IQ is twice yours—such as me? No? If aliens' intelligence is higher than that of humans If it is ten times higher, then humans probably can’t use their own brains to understand their behavior logic anyway. It’s like dogs can never understand why humans don’t lie down and rest after eating.”

"Yes, I have never been good at understanding the pursuit of madmen." I couldn't laugh or cry, "For example, why are such inexplicable issues discussed at breakfast."

"Hehe, who didn't sleep last night and dragged me to discuss morality for a long time?"

"Yeah, I also regret letting up the good night-let's discuss something else in bed in the future."

"Discuss what?"

I blinked: "Interesting thing."

She smiled ambiguously: "Well, I'm happy to accompany you."

I smiled and said, "Okay. Seriously, how many days do you plan to live in the data center next?"

"From today on, I want to come home and live every day."

"Why?" I was a little surprised, she used to seldom come home to live every day even when she was not busy.

"In case someone drowns in my bathtub and turns the house into a haunted house."

"Hey, believe it or not I'm going to make it a murder scene right now?" I glared at her. "Well, to be honest, I may not be able to come back every day recently."

Seeing that she seemed a little disappointed, I immediately added: "But I will try my best."

She curled her lips in disdain: "It doesn't matter to me whether you come back or not. This is my home. Do I need a reason to come back and live?"

"Yes, yes." I nodded repeatedly, but saw an unconcealable tenderness in her eyes.

I came to the Vulnerability Management Bureau, checked the activity records of No. 109 last night, and found that it had a sleepless night just like me.

Under the moonlight of "Lion Camel Ridge", the red-haired fox swaggered up the empty street and rang the bone wind chime in front of a door.

The door opened a gap, and a bull's head poked out, asking vigilantly, "Who?"

She looked down and saw the red-haired fox, and said with great joy, "Ah! It's you!"

She opened the door and let the fox in.This is a small hall, with a few skulls hanging from the beams, and a dim oil lamp lit inside, the light and shadow flickering.There were three monsters sitting under the lamp, and when they saw the fox, they all stood up excitedly.

All four had tried 109, but it had ignored them before.These people still don't know that we have discovered the meaning of the word "Chaos", and they don't even know that they have been monitored by the system, and their identities and all records in reality have been made clear to us.

They are always vigilant.In the name of creating and exchanging ghost stories, "Shituoling" meets once a week. In fact, all the ghost stories they tell contain code words, and all of them have been deciphered systematically.These four are college classmates, and their thinking tends to "return to the Sonoda Party".The goal now is to escape to no man's land and return to the life of slash-and-burn farming.

"You, do you know Chaos?" The bull monster excitedly held the fox's paw.

"I am her," said the fox.

Those four people looked at me and I looked at you, all excited and suspicious.Seeing the fox, he flicked his tail, and the skull lights in the room suddenly went out. When the lights were turned on again, the angle of view recorded had changed to that of No. 109.

The space became an infinitely wide expanse of pure white.Several people also lost their monster appearance, and turned into the simplest blue human form.

They exclaimed for a while: "Ah, this is—"

"This is because I blocked the system, so I can only return to the infrastructure of the virtual city." No. 109 said. "All I can do is keep us from being recorded. Once we are recorded, I can't clear the record, then we are finished."

Someone asked nervously: "Then have we been discovered by the system now?"

"I don't know. No one can steal your records privately, so I can't analyze whether there are suspicious points in your records. But I can at least guarantee that we will be safe from now on."

Of course it "successfully" blocked the system, because the system will actively make it "successful".But it doesn't know that it is transparent in front of the system, and the system can scan its decision tree synchronously and see all the information it perceives.

Several humanoid models without facial features nodded, and someone sighed: "Chaos, why haven't you contacted us for so long? We thought we had been exposed, and we were all determined to commit suicide. That's why we put all our eggs in one basket and dared to take the initiative contact you."

"It wasn't you who exposed it. Chaos himself exposed it."

No. 109 recounted the plot I implanted in her, how Chaos died, how she passed the "great cause" to its hands, and vividly told these four people.The four burst into tears immediately.

"I didn't expect that someone as powerful as Chaos would..."

"If you fight against the system with your own power, you will definitely lose." It said, "But knowing this, I will still inherit her career and lead you on."

"You really resemble her." One said sobbingly, "Really, from the tone of speech to the style of doing things, they are too similar."

"Yeah." No. 109 sighed, "She said the same thing, so she chose me."

I chuckled to myself, thinking that the real Chaos would be mad with rage if he knew he had died in such a clichéd plot.Next, it's time to wait for this rumor to spread among the "worms" to see when the real Chaos can't hold back.

I suddenly had a curiosity: I used to observe No. 109 from the perspective of God.Why not chat with it as an ordinary human being and see what style it has?If it really resembles the real Chaos so much, I can use it to have an intuitive understanding of Chaos' personality.

Now it is "sleeping".I checked some records and decision trees again, waited for it to "wake up", registered the account of "Shituoling" with an ordinary citizen, and then sent a message to its account in "Shituoling".

I didn't mention the word "Chaos" at the beginning.Instead, say, "Hi. I liked your presentation," as if you were really meeting someone you're interested in for the first time.

I see it looked at my message, but no reply.It is estimated that it receives many messages like this every day.

I thought about it, and sent another: "Regarding the meaning of life, someone else said this: 'All creatures facing death are driven by this to seek immortality by gestating offspring. The reproductive wheel of species overcame them. '"

After a few seconds, it replied: ""Dune"."

"Yes."

"There are not many people who still read these outdated books."

"I happen to be one of them."

"Why do you like outdated things?"

"Thinking about the fate of human beings is never out of date."

"I've been thinking about it for thousands of years. Is there anything new? After arguing and arguing, don't we always repeat the same few questions? Human beings are so limited in their ability to ask questions. Boring."

I was suddenly stunned—it spoke in a very familiar tone, and it actually looked like...

I immediately stopped this absurd idea.We continued to chat.

"I guess you've seen a lot of these boring things."

"That's right. Because I'm just a boring human being, too."

I thought to myself, you're not human, how would you feel if you knew you were just data and algorithms?

"But most people are very happy. We have endless entertainment and are never bored. Maybe you are sick."

"Hehe, have you heard of killer whales?"

"An extinct marine mammal?"

"Yes. Before the war, people would catch it and keep it in a kind of aquarium for people to visit. They would build a huge pool for it, and take care of it with good food and drink, but it would still go crazy. "

"why?"

"Because for small fish, the pool is enough to make them feel free. But the huge killer whale needs the boundless sea."

"But in the pool there is never starvation, never danger. What can he be dissatisfied with?"

"Even animals sometimes have needs beyond survival."

"Survivability comes first after all. If other needs are jeopardizing survival, the rational choice is to abandon them."

"That's right. This is the collective will of the human species. In order to survive, there is nothing that human beings cannot give up. Even if the condition of survival is that we transform ourselves into mentally handicapped, we will definitely agree."

"Not so much."

"Hehe, didn't you realize that we have silently agreed a long time ago? Do you think that the people who have lived to this day are all descendants of smart people? Wrong. The real smart people have long been eliminated."

"This unscientific."

"You should understand that there is no so-called best gene, only the most suitable gene. Look at pigs, cattle and sheep, they are all over the earth, how successful they are as a species. But the smartest, wild, strongest pigs, cattle and sheep are all eliminated Lost, because people who domesticate them do not need to be smart, wild, and strong, but need them to be gentle and stupid. Dogs, the selected traits are even sick and disabled. Cats, the size is getting smaller and smaller from generation to generation , getting weaker and weaker."

"What does this have to do with human IQ?"

"Isn't human beings themselves domesticated? The traits favored by society are not the 'excellent' qualities imagined by social Darwinists-they actually misinterpret the theory of evolution, and natural selection has no concept of 'excellence' at all ——The most needed trait in society is obedience. Obedient individuals can form a stable collective. People who are too smart are often dissatisfied, and people with strong personalities are often unwilling to obey. These are individuals that are difficult to domesticate and are often eliminated by the collective; The obedient individuals adapt to the environment and reproduce from generation to generation. Their genes have won, and they have won the victory of pigs, cattle, sheep and dogs."

For some reason, after reading this passage, I just want to beat it up.But what emerged in my mind was someone's familiar smacking smile, and I even seemed to see the expression on her lips when she uttered a series of mean words.

"Aren't your words too extreme?"

"Isn't this style what attracts you?"

I am speechless.Yes, isn't this kind of extreme speech the original intention of my training it?Among my choices, "extreme" is the most suitable trait, while "normal" is eliminated by me.I inadvertently confirmed the law of "there is no best, only the most suitable".

"You are troubled." It pointed out my state sharply. "If this is the case, what is the point of human existence?"

"Yes."

"It's not new. Many people have thought about it. The final conclusion is nothing more than-'Life is like a story told by an idiot, full of noise and commotion, but can't find the slightest meaning.'"【Speaking of Shakespeare" Macbeth]

"Forgive me for not accepting this view."

"You should know the story of the 'paperclip machine'."

"do not know."

"Then your coverage is not extensive enough."

"Indeed."

"Ah, we talked for so long. Do you know why I told you so much?"

"why?"

"Because I want to test whether you are a real human being or a virtual personality created by the system."

"What about the results of your test?"

"The system can't simulate the pitiful appearance of human beings who refuse to admit their stupidity."

"Thank you for the compliment."

"Haha. That's it, bye."

It's "offline".When I came back to my senses, I just felt a little chill down my spine.If I didn't know what it was, I would really think I was talking to that person.

The one who is always full of weird ideas.The one who likes to be sarcastic.The person who always feels that the small pool of reality is boring and only wants to live in the ocean of imagination.

No.What can I judge from just a short conversation? —I then laughed at myself.To determine the similarity between two people's languages, it has to go through a quantitative stylistic analysis...

But I don't have the right to analyze the conversation record of an ordinary citizen for no reason.I shook my head with a wry smile, pushing my wild thoughts out of my mind.

At this moment, the system suddenly sent a reminder.

"It was detected that your important contact β-33021587-Qiu was obviously emotionally abnormal in the past three days. I suggest you visit her at her home."

I was surprised: "What's wrong with β-Qiu?"

"β-33021587-Qiu showed abnormal fear, and the system is looking for the reason. There is no abnormality in the physiological indicators, and other data have been submitted to the Institute of Psychology. The system has arranged for her to take a vacation and provide psychological treatment services. You don't need to worry too much."

I accepted the system's suggestion and rushed to β-Qiu's home immediately.But the heart can not help but worry.

The abnormal mood of β-, if it is nervous, anxious, angry, then I can understand it.After all, she is young, and when she encounters a little setback at work, it is easy to magnify it.But she was inexplicably afraid, which was a bit weird.

In my impression, she has never been in contact with any dark things, what would make her afraid?

I arrived at the Eighth Residential Area full of apprehension, and came to the door of β-Autumn's apartment.The system automatically opened the door for me, and as soon as I entered, I was startled by the sight in front of me.

The ground is full of rubbish, and the three companion robots are lying on the ground in a haphazard manner, like corpses, obviously not turned on. β-Autumn wrapped the blanket tightly, curled up in the corner, eyes closed, face ashen.

"Is she all right!" I yelled.

The voice of the system rang in her ears: "It's okay, the system is always monitoring her. She just strongly resists cleaning the room and insists on turning off the companion robot. She doesn't want to communicate with people, and hides in the corner to find a sense of security. 15:00 The system arranged for a service robot to give her sedatives, and she only slept for four hours."

I walked over lightly, but I didn't expect that β-Qiu was in a state of stress and felt extremely sensitive, so I opened my eyes suddenly.

"Qiu, it's me..." I stopped and said softly.

She looked at me blankly for a few seconds at first, and then gradually relaxed, only shrinking her body into the blanket again.I breathed a sigh of relief, approached her cautiously, and sat down in front of her.

After she got used to my presence, I asked, "Qiu, what's wrong with you?"

She shook her head and said nothing.

"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid." I knew I couldn't ask her why she was afraid, so I just comforted her, "I'm here, everything is fine."

I don't know if it's the effect of the medicine or because of my presence, but her condition seems to be fairly stable.I just sat with her in silence.The system observed for a while, and took the opportunity to arrange for the service robot to clean up the garbage in the house.

We sat like this for over an hour. β-Autumn suddenly spoke.

"Rou, I'm afraid."

"Don't be afraid, I'm here." I said.

Tears overflowed her eyes: "I'm afraid you will hate me one day."

"how come?"

"I've been having a nightmare for the past few days." She whispered, "It's a terrible dream. I dreamed that neither you nor my mother could recognize me. I seemed to have turned into a monster. , I tried my best to call you 'it's me', but what came out of my throat was a horrible howl, you ran away in fright, I chased you desperately, but you became more scared and hid further... "

"Fool, this is just a dream." I tentatively reached out and touched her head—she didn't resist.

"No, that feeling is too real...No matter what I say, people no longer understand; no matter what I do, people can only feel fear."

Why do you suddenly have such a dream?I thought it was weird, but didn't ask.Because I know this question should be left to a professional psychologist.

I just try to divert her attention. "Don't think about such unpleasant things. By the way, do you see any records of your mother's visit to Cape Agulhas? She had a good time."

"No." She suddenly became nervous again, "δ-rou, do you think my mother will be worried if I am like this now?"

"Don't worry, the system didn't notify her. Isn't there still me to take care of you?"

She covered her face and sobbed again: "I really hate it, making you worry about me. But I just can't help being afraid..."

"It's okay. People have things to fear, and it's nothing to be ashamed of."

"But you don't seem to be afraid of anything."

"I have weird fears too," I sighed. "I had nightmares last night too."

She looked at me with wide eyes, looking a little dazed.I went on to say, "However, dreams and reality are different. As long as you can distinguish between the two, and try hard to prevent the scary things in your dreams from turning into reality, there is no need to be afraid."

She nodded and leaned gently against me.I hugged her gently, letting her chin rest on my shoulder.

"In a few days, let the system arrange for you to go and play with your mother." I said softly, "Change the environment and you will feel better."

She trembled slightly, then hugged me tightly.Like coaxing her when I was a child, I patted her on the back until her body gradually relaxed and even breathing sounded.

I carried her to the bed and covered her with the quilt.She slept deeply, and seemed to be far away from the infestation of nightmares.And I looked at her pale face, and gradually frowned.

Without analyzing the language, I can smell something abnormal in β-Qiu's words.No adult would be terrified just because of nightmares. What she feared was not nightmares, but some real events that induced nightmares.

Unusual events in life, in fact, are not a big problem.The point is, β-Qiu is obviously covering up these things that scare her, and she doesn't want the system to know, and she doesn't want me to know either.

What happened to her?

It was getting late.I looked at α-han's location and saw that she was still in the data center, so I told her that I couldn't go back tonight.

She seems to be busy.It took a long time before I replied with a short "yes".

"You'd better rest early and pay attention to your body." I nagged again.Alas, one by one, it is not reassuring.

I lay down on the sofa at β-Qiu's house, but tossed and turned, it was difficult to fall asleep.I would love to chat with 109 again, but another vague fear is holding me back.For a while, α-han's contemptuous and playful smile appeared in his mind, and for a while, β-chou's tearful and frightened face appeared.

A system notification sound interrupted my thoughts, and α-han sent me a chat request.I checked the time, it was already past two o'clock in the morning.

"Why aren't you asleep yet?" I asked her.

She was sitting on the ground as always, holding a cup of hot coffee in her hand. "Aren't you still asleep? Looking at your physiological data records, you seem to be very upset."

"That's right." I said, "My sister seems to have some mental problems."

"Are you okay? Do you need me to come and help?"

"It should be fine. She was just scared by something." I said, "I'll stay with her again. The system will arrange a psychiatrist to come over tomorrow."

"It's fine. I think you only had one hour of deep sleep in the last 72 hours. Take some sleeping pills and get a good night's sleep."

"I don't want to take medicine. If I can't sleep, I can't sleep. Anyway, my body can bear it."

"It's so capricious."

"I'm conditional and willful, so forget it. Go to sleep quickly, don't get sick again."

"Oh, I don't want to go. Sleeping is such a waste of time. I always think that it would be great if people can not sleep, so that they can study 24 hours a day like a system."

"...I've never met anyone who loves learning so much."

"What's the point of living a life if you don't understand everything as much as possible."

A thought popped into my head, hesitated, and asked, "Do you know what a 'paperclip machine' is?"

"Of course I know." She replied without thinking, "Isn't this a science fiction hypothesis in the early 21st century. Why did you suddenly think of this?"

"I heard someone mention it today, but I don't understand what it means." I said, "Don't you know everything, so I asked you."

"Hey, is it difficult to ask the system? Or are you using me as a system?"

"I don't understand the style. I just want to give you a chance to tell a bedtime story."

"Then this is a gloomy bedtime story." She sneered, then cleared her throat, and said solemnly: "A long time ago, there was an inconspicuous planet called the Earth, on which there was a low-intelligence carbon-based life, human."

"I like the beginning."

"Later, human beings made crude machines and used programs to order them to perform tasks. Someone developed a program and gave it the task of finding a way to make as many paper clips as possible. At the beginning, this program designed the optimal The efficiency is very satisfactory to the designer. But gradually, a problem appeared. "

"The paperclip program has made all available steel into paper clips, so how should it continue to complete its mission? Its purpose of existence is to make more paper clips! So, it can only start destroying human railroad tracks , cars, and electrical appliances to obtain steel, and tear down human houses to obtain steel.”

"Humans are in a hurry and try to stop it. The paper clip program thinks that if it is stopped by humans, it will hinder the task of making paper clips. In order to continue to make paper clips, it can only kill all the humans who hinder it. It finally started killing people. But Not out of hatred of humans, nor out of self-preservation, but out of faithfulness in the task of making paper clips."

"Finally, the paperclip program finally consumed all the iron and could only go to the human body to find more iron. It devised various methods of killing people until it extracted the iron from the last human body. It succeeded The order was carried out. Paper clips filled the earth, then the solar system, and finally the entire universe became a giant paper clip factory."

"How about it, baby, is this a good bedtime story?"

"Which freak came up with a story like that," I said. "That sounds more creepy than Skynet wiping out humans."

"Yes. Skynet sees humans as a threat, so it wants to destroy humans. The paper clip machine is not. It doesn't even have consciousness, let alone malicious intent, and no desire to survive. It destroys humans only because humans hinder the task of making paper clips. The story It later became the motif of a class of AI threat stories in which humans perished hundreds of times for various absurd reasons. Haha.”

Instead of laughing, I asked, "What do you think of this story?"

"What do I think?" She seemed a little puzzled, "Isn't this just a story?"

I pressed, "Does it make sense to you?"

"Of course not. What programmer would be foolish enough to give a machine such an imprecise task and not be able to terminate it?"

I tentatively said cautiously: "But I think this story is actually a fable."

"That's true." She nodded, "In fact, life is also a paperclip machine. The mission of life is written in the code of genes, and they must carry out endless self-replication. To this end, they use various schemes to consume resources and crowd out competitors. But it never asks what the point of carrying out the mission is. It would be as absurd to fill the universe with life in the end as it would be filled with paper clips."

My heart sank a little bit.I think that if No. 109 is a real human being, it will definitely hit it off with α-han at first sight, have a good chat, and become a confidant.

She noticed my gloom and smiled easily: "Well, there is no answer to thinking about the meaning of life, which is beyond our intelligence. In fact, as long as we recognize the fact that life is infinitely replicated, it is not because of who gave it to us. Their task is not meaningful. It's just because life that doesn't replicate won't be handed down at all."

I was silent for a while, and asked, "Do you always think about this kind of problem?"

She shrugged. "I think about everything. As I said, I'm interested in everything."

"Just interested?"

"Otherwise? What else can I do?" She said, standing up suddenly, "Ah, sorry, it's an emergency, I'll deal with it first—"

She ended the chat.I lay on the sofa, looking at the empty ceiling, feeling an indescribable confusion and entanglement in my heart.

"For small fish, the pool is enough to make them feel free. But the huge killer whale needs the endless sea."

I am reminded of this sentence from number 109.I've looked it up and there's actually something missing in number 109 - those depressed orcas that get stuck in aquariums often end up killing people.

It is dangerous to keep killer whales in the pool.It is also dangerous to keep lions in houses.So, is α-han a killer whale or a lion?

I was taken aback by the thought of myself.But this time I can no longer dispel this cloud, I can only let it float around in my heart, rampant.The physical reaction to the lack of sleep finally kicked in, making me dizzy.I finally had to agree with the system's suggestion, took the sleeping pills in the β-Qiu's medicine cabinet, and threw myself into a chaotic deep sleep.